A great mystery / Is my true self that I bring / From my ancient home

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And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful
wife
And you may ask yourself-Well…How did I get here?

I do indeed ask myself, “How did I get here?” Did I come to this world? Was I sent into this world? Steps to Knowledge answers that question “Yes.” To elaborate, some variation of “you have come to the world” appears 20 times in 10 different steps between Step 6 “I have a true foundation in the world” and Step 92 “There is a role for me to play in the world.” Variations of “you have been sent” only appear twice in the same interval. One of those times is in Step 93 “I am sent here for a purpose.”

How did I get here?

The word “purpose” appears 21 times in 13 different steps between “Why am I doing this anyway?” and Step 92. Therefore, I believe that people who have come this far have accepted, at least as a working assumption, the idea that they have a purpose for which they are here in the world. Some people might be sincerely ignorant of what that purpose might be. Other people are thinking “Aha! I knew it!” and believing their purpose is some purpose they have imagined for themselves, or some purpose they have attempted to live for themselves. I have been at both those stations. The steps I’ve done so far have helped me to be suspicious of what I want my purpose to be. The point of the step is to hold a place for one’s purpose, without claiming to know what it is yet.

I find it interesting that the step uses the present tense “I am sent here for a purpose,” instead of the past tense “I was sent here for a purpose.” I believe there is an intention to bring this idea into my present experience.

How did I get here? While I’m a little shaky on the details, I say I came here for a purpose. I say I am sent here for a purpose.

Let’s get to business, shall we? Steps to Knowledge does. Steps to Knowledge, as early as Step 6, “I have a true foundation in the world,” describes the world as a place to which we have come. The world isn’t merely the scene of a biological accident. The world isn’t just a karmic prison which we don’t escape until we have paid the last penny. I wrote about this in more detail here.

Let’s get to business, shall we?

Step 65 is the first step since Step 33 to directly address the idea that there is a mission to fulfill, that there is work to do in the world. It is as if Steps to Knowledge sowed a seed in me in Step 33, and came back to water it in Step 65. Are we told what the mission is, what the work is? No. We are only told what it is not.

“Your work is greater than your current employment. Your work is greater than what you are currently attempting to do with people and for people. Your work is greater than what you are attempting to do for yourself. Understand that you do not know what your work is. That will be revealed to you and it will evolve for you, but understand today that you have come to the world to work.”

I have a thought that if I had a direct experience of my work which I came to the world to do, at the time I did Step 65, then I would be terrified out of my senses. I would run screaming from wherever I was, knowing full well that there was no place to run screaming to.

And this was the thought that rested uppermost in my mind when doing this step. My notes testify to this, for I wrote: I feel as though I have a very superficial understanding so far, perhaps I have no understanding at all about what the Steps are saying.

I chose not to take this lack of understanding to heart, though, but reflected further on what might be my true foundation, taking great comfort in the following sentence: “This foundation is built upon your life beyond this world, for that is where you have come from and that is what you will return to.”

I took great comfort because these words confirmed something I already believed—that I have come into this world from somewhere and I will be returning there when I leave. And now I have the added comfort of realizing that this is where my true foundation rests. I could go even further to say that my true foundation rests in God. It rests in the spiritual part of me – not my physical body, not my thoughts, ideas and beliefs, not my hopes and desires, but the part of me that is beyond definition.

I accept that certain things are beyond definition.

My true foundation is still a concept beyond definition for me, but I have a great need for it, so I do as Step 6 suggests and ponder this question “with sincerity and with penetrating depth.” I am willing to accept that without a true foundation, my real accomplishments and advancement will be without hope. I am willing to go even further and take it as a great blessing I possess, even if it is unknown to me.

Step 49 of Steps to Knowledge, like the other Steps evenly divisible by 7, is a review. But it is a review of the all of the Steps done so far. Steps 1 through 6 will therefore be reviewed three times, as they were reviewed in Step 7, Step 14, and Step 49. All the other steps will be reviewed twice, as they were reviewed in their own review step, and in Step 49.

This step contains the first instance of the word “Congratulations” in Steps to Knowledge. I don’t consider this a word of idle flattery. I say anyone who has arrived at this point has demonstrated some openness of mind and some resolve.

The current plan is to write a series of posts, sharing what I wrote when I did the Step 49 Review, seven posts at a time, and adding any additional comment if needed.

Step 1 – I am without Knowledge now – “Nothing particularly controversial, although I have no idea what they mean by ‘Ancient Home.’ Maybe the Mormons were right all along. As I have gone along, Knowledge has gotten bigger, greater, wiser.” The Mormons speak of a premortal existence, and their missionaries show a picture of a beautiful parklike place when they speak of it.

Step 2 – Knowledge is with me. Where am I? – “Where am I? ‘Flopping about on the surface of my mind, imagining that’s all there is.’ I want Knowledge to make me non-autistic, but Knowledge seems to have other plans.” I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism, in 2006.

Step 3 – What do I really know? – “I seem to recall thinking there were some things I knew at the time, but now I’m not so sure if I know anything.”

Step 4 – I want what I think I know – “I think I know that the world needs a hero, and that I want to be one.” On further review, maybe heroic ambitions are part of the problem.

Step 5 – I believe what I want to believe – “I recall thinking when I did this step ‘I believe what I want to believe in order to survive, reproduce, have power, have pleasure, and avoid responsibility.’ I am screwed, humanity is screwed, living in a world of delusion.”

Step 6 – I have a true foundation in the world – “Steps bounce back and forth between confessions of the current state of bewilderment, and the alternative good news. Telling me that I haven’t come to the world empty-handed was/is a great consolation, as I have been a problem for the past 30 years.” Ok, ok, that’s definitely overdramatizing things. I’ve had many happy moments, but I’ve also had many issues and disappointments. Some of them might have been because my unknown-at-the-time autistic tendencies, and some of them might have been because of prosaic poor choices.

Step 7 – Review – “Whatever I think Knowledge is, that ain’t it. Furthermore, what I think I know is part of the problem. I feel the way I think, I think the way I believe, and any correspondence between what I believe and what is so is purely coincidental.”

If Steps to Knowledge were to be considered as an educational text, I believe it would be seen as introducing new ideas with a certain degree of subtlety. For example, the final sentence of the final paragraph of Step 4…

Understanding this [that there is a difference between what I think I know, and what I know] may be upsetting and disconcerting, but it is absolutely essential for you to give you the impetus and the desire to discover your true foundation in the world.

Another piece of evidence about the importance of stillness is the association of stillness with not one, but two Uncommonly Capitalized terms in one sentence.

Stillness of mind allows a Greater Mind to emerge and to reveal its Wisdom.

This Greater Mind might emerge during the practice of stillness. The Greater Mind might also emerge while doing some prosaic task, like dicing onions. Each time of practicing stillness is building a pathway, building a bridge, between the surface of the mind, where all things are deliberated, and the depths of the mind, where all things are known. I don’t know that this is so, but it is as if this Greater Mind required an unguarded moment to reveal itself.

Perhaps if I put this step together with the working definition of knowing something that I wrote about in the post on step 4, then perhaps this sentence makes sense: “In stillness, I experience things being self-evident, and receive inspiration for consistent action.”

In Step 6, “I have a true foundation in the world,” we are told that not only have we come into the world, but we have not come into the world empty-handed. I take great consolation in that statement, for in my life, it seemed from time to time that I just wasn’t up to what life was presenting to me.

In Step 6, there is a practice of pondering what my true foundation in the world could be, should be, or might be. It would be reasonable to consider that the Knowledge toward which I am taking steps, might be that true foundation. After all, Knowledge has already been called the greater aspect of mind that I have brought with me from my Ancient Home (Step 1). After all, I’ve been told that Knowledge represents my True Self, my True Mind and my true relationships in the universe.

It should be noted that when I actually did Step 6 (sometime in June of 2010) I didn’t contemplate the text of earlier Steps nearly as much as I am doing in this post. It didn’t occur to me to do so at the time.

Source Documents

God Has Spoken Again
God is speaking to humanity anew, proclaiming a warning, a blessing and a preparation for a new world reality.

The One God
A book of revelation that provides a new understanding of the nature and reality of God and God’s Plan and Purpose in the world and in the Greater Community of life in the universe.

The New Messenger
A book of revelation regarding the origin, lineage and mission of the Messengers of God who, at different times in human history, have entered the world to receive and present New Revelations for humanity.

Relationships and Higher Purpose
Taking you beyond the normal parameters of human relationships to a deeper experience of union, purpose and meaning with those individuals with whom you share a greater destiny in life.

Steps to Knowledge
Taking you on the journey of discovering Knowledge, the mysterious source of your inner power and authority, given to you by God to guide and to protect you.

Living the Way of Knowledge
The New Message Teaching on how to bring the grace, the guidance and the power of Knowledge into the Four Pillars of your life: The Pillar of Relationships, The Pillar of Work, The Pillar of Health and The Pillar of Spiritual Development.

The Great Waves of Change
A prophecy of the difficult times ahead and the steps you can take to navigate an increasingly turbulent and uncertain future.

How Posts Are Organized – Как организуются сообщения

2) If a post is tagged with a given tag, it means either a) that post is part of a thread where all the posts in the thread have that tag (like "2012 Encampment" for example), or b) that an out-of-the-ordinary person, place or thing was referenced in the post (like "Boulder" for example)

4) Most of the posts written before August 2014 are related to the book "Steps to Knowledge," but were not tagged as such. A tag of the form "Step #" such as "Step 10" means the post with that tag is related to Step 10 of the 365 steps in Steps to Knowledge.